We are pleased to announce Affinity Publisher build 221 is now available as a manual download from the link above. We hope to put it on auto-update early next week.

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents.

We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.

Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum.

Many thanks for your continued feedback.

---

Updates and Fixes

Master Pages

Due to the changes in Master Page functionality in this build we strongly suggest you backup any documents that are valuable to you before testing.

It is now possible to edit the content of Master Page Text Frames and Picture Frames directly from a spread the master is applied to. By default, on editing, the content attribute for the item in question is automatically unlinked, but the other attributes and geometry remain locked. It is also possible to entirely lock the Master Page instance if desired, to prevent unintended content edits. Finally options are available to edit all attributes of Master Page items linked - the Master Page and any other pages it is applied to will be updated - or to edit all attributes unlinked - only the copy on the current spread will be updated. In both of these cases an information bar is displayed while the editing ‘mode’ is active.

Text flow between frames on masters is honoured when the master is applied and it is possible to create text flow between frames that have come from masters. When auto-flowing text from a frame that comes from a master the text auto-flow will use the matching frame on subsequent pages that have the same master applied or insert new pages with the same master.

Note that the previous default behaviour was to edit all attributes for all master items linked, but also to lock the Master Page instance in the layers panel. If dealing with an old document and the new functionality is desired the instance will need to be unlocked or the Master reapplied.

Text > Insert Text from File has been removed and File > Place should be used instead. The types of files available via File > Place depends on context, for example if a Text Frame is selected then text files will be made available.

Performance
(Win) Fix for system mis-reporting RAM on some systems leading to poor performance.
- If 'RAM Usage Limit' in Preferences > Performance is set to 1024MB you may be experiencing this issue. If so please set the limit manually to a higher value (typically the amount of Physical RAM installed) or Ctrl-Run Up to reset settings.

Text and Tables
Tables and Text frames can now individually be set to ignore baseline grid
Added support for language dependent smart quotes
Allow for space above at tops of columns in more places. Fixes issues with Art Text
No longer apply initial words formatting automatically to text generated by lists
Fix for effect of next paragraph style on character formatting not being undone correctly
Fix crash justifying narrow text
Page Number glyphs are now shown as placeholders on master pages
When creating a TOC reuse an unused style if there is one
Fixed Hyphenation to exclude nulls from hyphenation strings because they confuse length rules
(Mac) Fixed failure to ever set Restart Numbering 'Now' in Text Style Editor
(Win) Fixed issue with Arial Black being incorrectly reported as missing
Fix for Edit Text Style controls not updating when Font Family changed
Fixed issue changing Table insets after scaling
Fixed issue scrolling through the Font List if fonts with long names present
Resizing text frame no longer causes issues with cursor position on the text ruler
Fix for punctuation stopping 'Capitalise first word of sentence' from working

Import / Export and Printing
Fix for some EPS imports being incorrectly translated
Document fields such as 'Author' and 'Subject' are now exported to PDF
(Win) Fix for some stroke widths being printed incorrectly on rotated objects
(Win) Fix for flipped text printing

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

You can edit the content of Text and Picture Frames directly without taking any action. In addition the right click menu for the Layer in the Layers Panel can be used to switch between 'Edit Detached', 'Edit Linked', 'Edit Frame Content' and 'Lock'. Either 'Edit Detached', 'Edit Linked' will allow you to edit other attributes of the frame.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

It is now possible to edit the content of Master Page Text Frames and Picture Frames directly from a spread the master is applied to. By default, on editing,

It is not true. They are locked and can't be unlocked via Layer menu and there is no option on layer panel to unlock them, too﻿.

from the OP

Quote

Note that the previous default behaviour was to edit all attributes for all master items linked, but also to lock the Master Page instance in the layers panel. If dealing with an old document and the new functionality is desired the instance will need to be unlocked or the Master reapplied.

Please reapply the master or unlock the master objects. In existing (pre #221) documents they are locked by default. Does that help?

Patrick Connor

Serif (Europe) Ltd.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

You can edit the content of Text and Picture Frames directly without taking any action. In addition the right click menu for the Layer in the Layers Panel can be used to switch between 'Edit Detached', 'Edit Linked', 'Edit Frame Content' and 'Lock'. Either 'Edit Detached', 'Edit Linked' will allow you to edit other attributes of the frame.

Uhhhh. Can't it be done as simple as in Quark? Every item in Master page(s) in Quark is automaticaly free to move, resize, delete... without additional action.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Uhhhh. Can't it be done as simple as in Quark? Every item in Master page(s) in Quark is automaticaly free to move, resize, delete... without additional action﻿.

Feel free to make suggestion forum posts.

2 hours ago, AdamW said:

We hope you enjoy the product, and as always, if you've got any problems installing or running up, please don't hesitate to post in this thread.

Any problems actually using this version please make a new topic in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please feel free to leave general suggestions and comments in the Discussion Forum. ﻿

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Uhhhh. Can't it be done as simple as in Quark? Every item in Master page(s) in Quark is automaticaly free to move, resize, delete... without additional action.

In our model, and I believe Quark is similar, changing an object attribute causes it to become unlinked from the master version. Once unlinked, changes made to the attribute on the master will not be reflected. That's why we think you should have to explicitly choose to do this.

As Patrick says though, further discussion on this topic should be moved to a separate thread.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

By default, on editing, the content attribute for the item in question is automatically unlinked, but the other attributes and geometry remain locked. It is also possible to entirely lock the Master Page instance if desired, to prevent unintended content edits. Finally options are available to edit all attributes of Master Page items linked - the Master Page and any other pages it is applied to will be updated - or to edit all attributes unlinked - only the copy on the current spread will be updated. In both of these cases an information bar is displayed while the editing ‘mode’ is active.

Thanks for the new beta. Could we have a bit more detail on the quoted section, please? For example, where are the options available? Also, how can we tell what attributes are unlinked and which are still locked?

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Thanks for the new beta. Could we have a bit more detail on the quoted section, please? For example, where are the options available? Also, how can we tell what attributes are unlinked and which are still locked?

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

In our model, and I believe Quark is similar, changing an object attribute causes it to become unlinked from the master version. Once unlinked, changes made to the attribute on the master will not be reflected. That's why we think you should have to explicitly choose to do this.

As Patrick says though, further discussion on this topic should be moved to a separate thread.

Serif have asked (see first post in this topic) that you report problems using the application by creating a new topic, not posting here. I think you should do that.

Also, it's more convenient for everyone if you attach an image file (JPG, PNG) rather than a PDF, as it will display directly in your post rather than requiring downloading and opening outside the forum.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Don't know about the problems, but I for one am glad to see editable content in text and picture frames from master pages. Tried it and it works well for me. I did create a new master page and applied it to a page with no master applied yet. Thanks for the new feature!

Now, if you could just add image frames or in-place images that can be anchored to text to allow reflow--you've got a real winner and a contender against the "big guys"!